Persecuted Christians (a thread): Why doesn't this get picked up more by the media? Some of this is the scale and longevity of the problem, but another aspect is, frankly, the prejudices and preconceptions of western journalists about Christianity. https://twitter.com/The_Tablet/status/1349355475758944256

Christianity is percieved as western (despite most Christians living in the tropics), powerful - even oppresive (despiste its declining influence in the secular west), and generally not the 'right' kind of persecuted minority. For some westerners they can't ever REALLY be victims

This is though perhaps the least controversial aspect. A deeply uncomfortable one for us western Christians is that we don't really like advocating for ourselves, or for those like us. Self-sacrificial love is all too easily a mask for a self-effacement and timidity.

That covers journalists and Christians. But what of politicians in particular? Frankly the people doing the persecuting are those that many in public life in the west do not want to anger, provoke or be seen to attack.

Sometimes this is because the persecutors are extremely rich and powerful, like the governments of India and China. We value trade over ethics. In other cases the state and non-state actors are Islamic extremists, and many are scared of Islam in a variety of ways.

On the one hand we fear to be seen to be racially or religiously biased, and see Muslims as victims even when they form powerful minorities with extensive privileges relative to religious minorities like Christians.

On the other, though they don't wish to admit it, many fear the fatwahs and death squads that have struck critics and 'blasphemers' of Islam even in the heart of the pluralist west. They also fear the wrath of touchy but influential Islamic governments like the gulf states.

Both perspectives, I want to be absolutely clear, are themselves Islamophobic, in that they render Muslims as either passive recipients of pity, or dangerous aliens not to be reasoned with. In reality Islamic extremism blights and kills even more Muslims than it does Christians.

The persecution of Christians represents the one of the most largescale ethnic cleansing of a religious minority in history, with Christianity at risk of largely dissapearing in its historic birthplaces. We have to have the courage to speak out on their behalf no matter our fears